Parking the Dog:

‘The Outdoor Settle’

This exercise is similar to the settle, in that we are looking for the same emotional state, i.e. calm and relaxed.  The only difference is that the position (sit, down, stand) that the dog is in is the dog’s choice.  For example, if you were outside and it was wet, muddy, or cold your dog may not want to lie on the floor.  This is ok just as long as the dog is behaving in a calm manner.

As an example parking is useful when you are on a walk and you need to stop and have a conversation, waiting your turn during group training and between drives on a shoot.

Parking training outside requires a training lead.  This is a lead that at full length is around 6ft but has links so that it can be clipped at different lengths.  I recommend the Halti Training Lead.

The training lead enables you to keep the dog safe and secure.

To park you need:

• To stand on the lead so it is under the ball of your foot.

• Enough lead from your foot to the dog’s collar or harness to give it freedom to sit, stand or lie down comfortably.

• Enough lead to still hold it in your hand in case the lead slips from under your foot.

Parking manages the dog’s behaviour in three ways:

• They cannot pull you around

• They cannot lunge too far towards to another dog or person

• They cannot jump up at you

Once you have parked the dog they then need help to learn how to behave when parked.  We do this by quietly rewarding anything appropriate that they might do.  The reward is just a small piece of food, either given to the dog’s mouth or dropped on to the floor.  It is important that you ignore the dog, so that means there is no eye contact or verbal praise.  The food alone should give the dog the information we need to give it about its behaviour.

Think about what type of behaviour you would consider to be good.  For example:

• Sitting quietly

• Standing quietly

• Lying quietly

• Looking around the room

• Looking at you

• Sniffing the floor

You need to reward all of these every time you see them so that your dog understands what you expected of it.

If your dog sits and the lead is tense because it sat back, just lift your foot and give them a little more lead and reposition your foot making sure that there is a little slack on the lead.

If you don’t reward your dog quickly enough at first it may get confused and/or frustrated and it may start to vocalise, pull or chew the lead.  It is important that you don’t allow this to happen.

Some dogs can be very distracted and need some help.  With this type of dog I will park it and then just drop one treat after another onto the floor, just like when feeding in the settle, until it begins to think about what is happening, and then you can reward the dog for looking at you, standing, sniffing etc.

Watch the Video

 

© Copyright Jane Ardern BSc (Hons) 2019